I’m generally not a watch-a-lot-of-tv person, but given that I spend a lot of time sitting and resting, I’ve been “enjoying” more tv. Here’s my nutshell review of Private Practice: This show sucks donkey balls.

Top 10 Reasons why Private Practice sucks donkey balls.

1. Not a damn one of those characters was sympathetic, competent, or even interesting, save one. (see below)

2. What kind of a “world class neonatal surgeon” has to collapse in a quivering ball IN FRONT OF THE PATIENT AND HER FATHER before questioning whether she can do emergency surgery? While she was down on her knees did she want to beg for a lawsuit, too?

3. What kind of a fucked up medical practice WAS that? Pediatrics, psychology, infertility, and birth services? With a receptionist/midwife?

4. What kind of a “world class neonatal surgeon” mocks and denigrates a midwife? I know from midwives. They’ll kick your ass (and yes, bonehead, “Midwifery” is a word").

5. What idiot decided to open a practice engaging in medical procedures that can turn on a dime from normal to very very holy shit bad in a location that is over 20 minutes drive time for an ambulance?!

6. What kind of medical practice calls for an ambulance TWICE in ONE DAY with seriously endangered or outright DEAD patients, and STILL doesn’t clue in that 20 minutes response time is too freaking long?

7. How in the world did a psychologist and a pediatrician access that woman’s son’s medical records when (a) she wasn’t in any mental state to sign a release and (b) was probably ALSO more than 20 minutes drive time away from the records themselves?

8. Shut down an entire store department because a woman having an emotional breakdown is counting tiles, and her psychologist needs to watch a commercial in the camping department? Sure! I’d buy that (not).

9. Who are these numbskulls who turn a patient’s death and bereaved ex-wife and ovulating girlfriend into an argument about themselves? Do these people not know how to separate themselves from their patients at ALL?

10. Who decided to glue a Scotch Brite sponge to the bottom of Taye Diggs’ chin and call it fashion? Because it looks preposterous.

The only thing that didn’t suck about Private Practice:

1. Tim Daly. He could be cast in a role that requires him to stand motionless for 45 minutes and he’d STILL be more compelling than any of those other people. I could watch him read the phone book backwards.

Baba O’Riley:

- does NOT like to sit in a poopy diaper.

- will poop as SOON as you put a fresh diaper on his little tiny tush.

- has the smallest tush I’ve ever seen.

- loves to nap while laying on someone’s chest, preferably mine.

- will not sleep unless his head is covered.

Freebird:

- likes to say hi to The Baby before he goes to school.

- invited The Baby to sit next to him while he had his dinner: “Come Sit Baby!”

- went animal hunting in his crib last night: “Lion, where are you? RAAAAAAR! Sheep, where are you? BAAAAAAAAA! Monkey where are you? OOH OOH AAH AAH”

- loves to sing songs in the car, and does a mean “itsy bitsy spider” routine.

- is awesome.

We are opening presents from Baba O’Riley’s bris (which was yesterday, on Yom Kippur) and the Iron Lesbians gave us a card that says ‘Babies Rock!”

If you open it up, it plays music.

Specifically: “Push It.” By Salt n’ Pepa.

Push it?! That is SO WRONG and yet SO FUNNY.

Awesome.

Once I was in the OR, I was sort of an accessory to the action. Doctors were prepping me, themselves, the area for Baba O’Riley - it was a lot of movement and talking and I was just lying there, growing ever-more-numb, and feeling panicked because I couldn’t breathe easily. Well, no, I could breathe easily, but it felt like I couldn’t and I didn’t like that at all.

Hubby held my hand, and I could hear Dr. S. start the surgery. I threw up once on the way in (and once as they sewed me back up later, which took for damn ever), and regretted that sip I’d had of Hubby’s Gatorade more than I can say. I could feel all this movement - pulling and tugging and moving my innards around, but I couldn’t feel any pain, and mostly I just concentrated on breathing and remaining calm despite the anxiety that I felt like I couldn’t take good breaths even though I could. I could see the oxygen monitor above my head and I knew I was fine, but it still didn’t feel like I was. Like I said, there was TOTALLY someone sitting on my chest on the other side of that drape, and the anaesthesiologist was lying through his teeth when he said there wasn’t.

I heard Dr. S. say, “And here’s the head!” I heard suctioning, and crying, and more suctioning, and an announcement that there was no meconium in Baba’s airway. And then the rest of him was born, though I didn’t see it or feel it. I just heard someone say it was true, and could see Hubby looking around the drape to see Baba being born.  I heard someone say, ‘It’ a boy!’ and Dr. S. said “Mazel Tov!”

Then Dr. S. held Baba up over the drape, and there was an angry, white and red and very loud baby glaring at me and crying. He was drippy and bloody and covered with vernix and utterly pissed off, and he was beautiful. Hubby and Baba went over to the infant care area where his initial Apgar scores were taken, and I pretty much stayed where I was while my placenta was delivered and they prepped my body for the return trip through sutureville.

Unlike when Freebird was born, where I did a lot of the work, with Baba’s birth I was, well, an accessory. I was just there. I didn’t do anything but breathe and try not to panic. It was completely unlike my experience with Freebird, but it was no less real.

I know there are a lot of women who are devastated when they try for a vaginal birth and end up having a c-section, and while I was scared and I certainly didn’t enjoy it, what happened next explained to me, at least, why I’d had a c-section.

Dr. S. had already said something about how Baba’s head was misaligned in my pelvis for vaginal delivery, because he was moulded against my hip bone (which would explain all the hip pain I’d had), but as he was delivering my placenta and preparing the cord for blood collection, he said in a startled voice, almost sounding excited: “There is a true knot in this cord! LOOK! There’s a true knot! I haven’t seen one of those in a very long time - a true knot in the cord!”

For Dr. S., this was a rare event, something he didn’t see often. For me, it was confirmation that the c-section was meant to happen, because if I’d attempted a vaginal delivery with a knot in the cord, Baba could have been in crisis very, very quickly, and it would have been exceptionally dangerous for both of us. I said as much to Dr. S. a few days later, after telling him I never should have Googled “knot in the cord,” and he said, “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You are doing great and you have a healthy, happy baby.” He’s right. But I know not to beat myself up about having “failed to progress” (do doctors have to label it that way, like I tried and failed to do something? It’s not like I’m in control of my cervix up here) or about having tried for a vaginal delivery and ending up with a c-section. None of these events were in my control, and they never were. But as I said many, many times during my pregnancies: I don’t care if the baby comes out my nose, so long as baby and I are healthy and happy in the end.

Right now I’m nesting in the bed with books and internet and tv, and Baba is asleep next to me, and all is well. That’s how I wanted it to be, and I’m blessed and thankful for that, and for the person who invented percocet. I need to buy that person, and Dr. S. and my midwife and Hubby, a big, big beer. 

The L&D rooms at the hospital I was in are really very, very nice. They don’t look like delivery rooms - there’s a big armoire above the bed with all kinds of doors and cabinets, and inside is all the hospital equipment, and with all the doors closed it looks like a big wood piece of furniture. I also had wireless internet and cable tv, which is a big step up from the hospital where I delivered Freebird. The free wireless kept me entertained through most of my stay in the hospital.

I was in labor all freaking day. I had the world’s greatest epidural, because I couldn’t feel any pain, but I could move my feet and my legs, and so long as I switched sides and tilted to the left for an hour then the right, I didn’t lose the ability to move my toes. It was great.

We watched Pirates of the Caribbean, I blogged every now and again, I griped about how hungry I was and how much I wanted a cheeseburger, a Sprite, anything but ice chips, and I munched on ice chips because that was all I could get.

I was on a steadily increasing dose of pitocin and by 830pm it was cranked up all the way. I had measurable contractions 2-3 minutes apart, but my cervix refused to dilate past 6 cm. After a lengthy examination by the midwife and the ob/gyn on call, it was discussion time.

The ob/gyn on call, Dr. S. was marvelous, and I totally lucked out that he was the doctor at hand when I was in labor. He ended up delivering Baba O’Riley. But here’s the thing: the man makes his living wandering around examining women in labor. He wears white shirts. I told him he was living on the edge. “I’m very neat,” he said.

So Dr. S, my midwife, Hubby and I had a chat. It was brief:

Dr. S, very gently:  “Sarah, I don’t think you’re going to have this baby vaginally. I think we need to do a c-section.”

Sarah, who had begun to suspect that over an hour prior: “Ok.”

After Dr. S. left the room, I started to cry, because while I wasn’t heartbroken that I wasn’t delivering a particular way- my philosophy has always been that I didn’t care if the baby came out my nose so long as the baby and I were healthy at the end - I was scared. I was going in for surgery, after all, and it wasn’t what I expected. Since it was an unknown, I was intimidated and upset, but my midwife, who is awesome, told me what was going to happen, and that I’d be ok, and so would Baba O’Riley. I of course, was not only exhausted at this point but most incredibly hormonal, so I was a weepy mess for a few minutes.

What I didn’t expect was how FAST it happened - and how SHITFUL the anaesthesia is. I was wheeled into the OR, they hung up a drape so I couldn’t see the preparation of the rest of me, and the anaesthesiologist added a stronger medication to my epidural, one that involved morphine.  The whole preparation took about 20 minutes, tops. The anaesthetic? Totally sucked donkey ass. I felt like someone was sitting on me, and I got in an argument with the anaesthesiologist, who had NO sense of humor, as to whether there actually was someone sitting on me on the other side of the drape. He swore there wasn’t. I didn’t believe him.

As I got woozier and more frightened that I couldn’t breathe - despite being assured that my oxygen levels were just fine - Hubby came in, wearing a surgical mask and wearing scrubs, and that made me feel much better. Because Hubby in scrubs? Seriously SERIOUSLY cute. No, really. Wanna see?

Check him out.

So you can see why having scrubby Hubby in the OR with me made me feel a LOT better. 

My midwives and I decided on Thursday to induce me on Friday, 14 September. Problem was, the hospital I was set to deliver at didn’t appreciate inductions, nor did they allow any to be scheduled without 20 + days’ notice. So we had to “trick” them. I was to call my midwife when I was on my way to the hospital. She’d call the labor & delivery ward and say I was in labor, contracting, and on my way in.

Once I was there, I had to act like I was greater labor than I was and the midwife would examine me, pronounce me 4 cm and admit me - then start the pitocin. In their opinion, not allowing women to deliver when they wanted, such as in cases like mine where I was nearly due, in some pain and unable to move around, was hogwash. So in I went, pretending to be in labor, and pretending to be tired from being up all night.

In the birthing class Hubby and I took before Freebird was born, we learned all about timing my contractions. This time, since I have no concept of time, Hubby had to time me and tell me when I should start acting like I was having a contraction. So every 15 minutes, Hubby would give me “the signal” and I’d start breathing like I was having a contraction. At one point we were walking down the hall to the L&D rooms and I got “the signal” from Hubby.

I must have put on a great performance because after I was admitted 20 minutes later, the midwife mentioned to the admitting nurse that I was 4cm and ready to have the baby, and the nurse said, “Oh, I knew we’d be admitting her. She had ‘the look.’”

I’m home, and trying not to do too much, but I am not good at it. I stand up a lot more at home than I did in the hospital, and I’m paying for it. However, my body has chosen a really weird way to give me the “Hey, sit down fool” signal - full body shivers. It’s not like I spike a fever, but if I stand up too much or move too quickly, I get a major case of the shivers, and have to go sit down with a blanket. It happened in the hospital and my temperature didn’t move a degree, but I was hiding in bed until it went away. I FELT cold even though I wasn’t cold.

At least I can sit down, since I have Super Uber Hubby of Unstoppable Awesomeness.